“Did I ever tell you the story how Dostoevsky proposed to his future wife, Anna Grigoryevna Snitkin? Or ‘Snitkina,’ if you want to do it the Russian way.” “You have told me it,” she says, “but tell me it again. It’s a lovely story, I remember, but I forget most of it. She was much younger than him, am I right?” and he says “Twenty-five years. He’d hired her as a stenographer — a new profession in Russia — to transcribe his writing and dictation of the novel he was writing, The Gambler. He had to finish the book — I think he even started it at their first stenographic session — in a month. All of October, 1866, I believe — or he’d lose the rights to all his previous books published by the publisher he’d signed a contract with for The Gambler. The writer was taken advantage of like that then, far worse than anything that goes on today. The Gambler wasn’t one of Dostoevsky’s better books. In fact, if you want my opinion, it’s pretty far down the list. Maybe because—” “Just go on with the proposal he made to her. I’d much rather hear about the writer’s life than get an analysis of his work. And you yourself have said that’s how you usually read bios of writers — skipping the book critiques.” “Got ya,” he says. “How did I ever end up with such a wonderful woman?” “Is that what Dostoevsky said about her?” “No, that’s what I’m saying about you,” he says. “Although now that you mention it, he did say something very much like that at their wedding reception, I think to her mother. ‘Look what I’ve married,’ he said. ‘The dearest girl in the world.’” “He called her a girl?” she says. “Well, he was considerably older than her. And maybe that’s how all women then were referred to, no matter what their age, except the babushkas. A different time. As a woman, not one I would have liked to live in. And I remember how difficult it was being Dostoevsky’s wife. Their poverty and his gambling and depression and epileptic attacks. But the story. Finish it. Then we have to pick up my kids, if you still want to go with me.” “I do, I do.”
Missing Out
He first sees her at a party. She’s pretty, maybe even beautiful. Blond hair; simply dressed; nice body; animatedly talking to a woman. He can’t see from where he is if she has a wedding band on. He goes closer. If she doesn’t — even if she does — he’ll try to start up a conversation with her. He doesn’t know what he’ll say. “Hi. I’m Philip Seidel, a friend of Brad’s. You know him too or you’re a friend of a friend of his?” Not that. But something always comes.
But she’s always talking with one or two people. She went from that woman to a couple who seem to belong together. For a few seconds the couple holds hands. Then she’s talking to Brad, the host of this annual Christmas party. Then she’s standing by herself at the food table, looking as if she’s wondering what to put on the plate she’s holding. Now’s his chance. He starts over to her — is going to say something like “So you’re hungry too. Food looks good. He always does a great job on it—” but another guy gets to her first. She doesn’t seem to know him. They start talking and get food on their plates and get a glass of wine each and sit in chairs close together and eat and drink and talk. They laugh a few times. This goes on for about half an hour. Then he goes to the bathroom and when he comes back they’re no longer in their chairs. He walks through the apartment looking for her, hoping she’d be by herself again, and sees them in the foyer. She takes her coat off a coat hanger in the coat closet there. The guy already has his coat on and helps her out with hers. She must have come early, because when he got here that closet was filled. Maybe they knew each other before. It didn’t seem so. They talked and laughed like two people who had just met each other. He never did see if she had a wedding band on. Forgot about it. Anyway, too late to introduce himself to her. If only he had gone over too her sooner. Especially when she was talking to Brad. That would have been the perfect time.
He thinks about her a lot the next week. Then calls Brad. “Hey. Great party once again. Thank you. I’m also calling because there was a woman at your party, very attractive. Blond hair. Average height. Slim. Around thirty. Wearing a navy blue blouse. Not navy. Baby blue. A light blue.”
“You must mean Abigail Berman,” Brad says. “A doll. A living doll. Someone I knew through school but who quickly became one of my treasured acquaintances. So smart; gentle. Brilliant, I’d say. Post-doc. Russian scholar and translator. You’d like her work and authors. Twentieth century poets, mostly. Pasternak, Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Tsvetayeva, if that’s how you pronounce her name.”
“You got it right.”
“And that face. So spiritual. Standing alongside her is like being in the presence of an Italian Renaissance model for a painting of the blond madonna. Ghirlandaio. Botticelli. You know what I mean. Same with her voice. So soft. I can’t rave about her enough. If you’re interested, I think you’re too late, though you could always give it a try. An old buddy of mine, Mike Seltzer, met her at the party and they left together and Mike called me last night. He’s seen her twice since the party and he’s got a big date with her this weekend, he says. It seems, if you want my opinion, their relationship is already hot.”
“Then I better not call her.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Next time he sees her is at Brad’s Christmas party the following year. He didn’t speak to Brad about her after that one time and was hoping she’d be here and alone. She comes in with the guy she left the party with last year. The foyer closet is filled and she heads his way to dump their coats in the bedroom, where his is. He smiles and says “Hi” and she smiles and says “Hi” and goes in back. He feels nervous, agitated, something, and has since he first saw her come into the party. To calm himself and get out of her way when she comes back, because he doesn’t know what he’ll say and do then and he doesn’t want to just say and do nothing, he goes into the dining room where the drink table is and makes himself a Bloody Mary, drinks it quickly and makes another, this one not as strong. He doesn’t want to get looped. Then he’ll sound like an idiot if he does speak to her. He hangs around the same room she’s in. Tries not to be looking at her when she turns his way. Then she catches him looking at her — she must have a few times — but this time looks back at him with an expression saying “Do we know each other from some place?” He raises his shoulders and looks away. Why the hell he do that? He had a chance to speak to her. About twenty minutes later — he left the room and came back — she’s in a circle with three other women. He decides to wait to talk to her but to definitely talk to her sometime tonight. Why? He doesn’t know. Maybe just to speak to her once and see what she sounds and acts like when she’s talking to him. When the circle breaks up and for a few moments she’s standing alone, holding an empty wine glass, he goes over to her and says “Excuse me. And don’t be alarmed at what I’m going to say. But I know you caught me looking at you before. Staring, even, and I apologize. But we do, sort of, know each other. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Even a huge exaggeration. We were at Brad’s Christmas party last year. Oh, my name’s Philip Seidel.”
“Abigail Berman.”
“Very nice to meet you, Abigail. And I remember, at last year’s party, I wanted to talk to you— Would you like a refill on that wine?”
“No, thanks,” and she puts the glass on a side table.
“But some guy got to you first and before I knew it or could say a word to you, you left the party together.”
“That would be Mike. He’s somewhere at this party. I met him here that night and I guess we’ve been a couple ever since.”